Thursday, February 18, 2010

NY Eats

As I posted before the trip, we were looking forward to finding great places to enjoy NY cuisine. Laura and I looked at all kinds of possibililities beforehand, but once we got there, we opted to stick close to our home base. We never ventured far from the hotel or the Garden this year - the weather was cold and snowy/rainy most of the time. However, our lack of adventurousness did not stop us from finding tasty eats!

Sunday night we went in search of the Stage Deli, which I thought was at 8th and 34th. When we got there and couldn't find it, we opted for Lucy's Cantina, where we sampled roast pork with pineapple and lime chicken quesadillas, guacamole and chips, and had fabulous mojitos - so yummy we had to order a second round. On the way back we stopped at one of the three Starbucks that we passed in our block and a half walk and got hot coffee and tea.

Monday: Showtime! Stomach was too tipsy turvy for breakfast, and then the day was too crazy to find time to eat. I had a package of peanut butter crackers in my purse, and at one point in the afternoon I opened them up and Scout and I each ate one of them. About 5:00, Cheryl came by and relieved me from the bench.

Laura and I went in search of sports bar and grill allegedly somewhere in the bowels of Madison Square Garden. We got two sets of directions from two different security guards, and the elevator operator sent us a third completely different direction. Actually, she ended up sending us to the Club Bar and Grille, which was not a sports bar at all. We decided to stop looking around and just go with where we were, and it was a great choice.

It was a beautiful, dark paneled dining room, and our fellow diners ranged from grungy exhibitors like ourselves, to the tux and diamond crowd there for the box seats at the show that night. The only service in the Club that night was a buffet, and it was quite a spread: filet mignon, roasted duck, ravioli with truffles, a carving board with prime rib and roast turkey. The cold table had caesar salad and an asian chicken salad, enormous boiled shrimp, and cracked crab claws. The dessert table had all kinds of little sweets to try.

We dove right in, and wondered if we would have to take out a personal loan when the check came, but were very pleasantly surprised that it was actually reasonably priced.

For brunch Tuesday we checked out a little pizza shop just down the block from the hotel. We had both been wanting a slice or two of good New York pizza, and we were not disappointed.

Later Tuesday afternoon, I ended up on an extended tour of the Garden as I fruitlessly searched for my lost prescription glasses. It was not a complete loss, as I found myself on an escalator overlooking the Stage Deli that we couldn't find Sunday night - it was at 8th and 33rd - not 34th. So, we headed there early that evening for big New York deli sandwiches, which were too huge to finish. They packed the leftovers for us and we enjoyed them later that night while we watched the dog show in our jammies from the comfort of our palatial room.

The breakfast menu at the Stage Deli looked so good, we went back Wednesday for breakfast and to get to-go sammies to eat on the train home.

We made it back to Atlanta on time and I was back in CHA by 10:30. Cheryl dropped Scout off around noon, and we picked Spencer up from jail shortly afterward. I have been a slug all afternoon - snoozing a while, responding to emails for awhile and snoozing some more. Back to work tomorrow and then hopefully a recovery weekend!